Strong Without You
by LouBelle04
Summary: Ruth in the aftermath of 9.1.


_I'm reading everything about you in your eyes_

_The hurting, the tenderness, the questions, the replies_

_But words I've left unsaid_

_Keep ringing in my head_

_I know there can't be anything more than this_

Harry. Dear, sweet, infuriating, stubborn, stupid, Harry. A funeral? One of our colleague's funerals. How could anyone be so stupid as to think that a funeral is the best place to propose marriage! Even without our.. _history_.. it's a crazy idea. He must know that!

And yet. The look in his eyes as I told him I couldn't marry him. It was enough to make me tell him yes, I would marry him. There was so much hurt, pain, unhappiness and longing in his eyes.

We've not even told one another how we feel about the other. It must be so obvious that I love him, and I'm sure he loves me. But those wonderful words that were never said still remain unspoken. How can we base a relationship upon assumptions of how the other feels? If only one of us were more forthright.

_Somehow I must be strong without you_

_Need to be wrong to put things right_

_I know that I must be strong without you_

_I need to cut myself adrift before you drown_

I could never admit to anyone, other than myself, how badly I wanted to say yes to Harry and his idiotic proposal. But he will be far better off without me complicating, and interfering in his life. Everyone I love ends up hurting, or dead. I began to learn that 29 years ago, when my father died. My God, I still miss him, even to this day.

George's death and the loss of dear, sweet Nico reinforced the thought that I can't let Harry get close to me. I still feel so much guilt over the pair of them, the lies and the events which followed my return to London. I know Harry must feel so betrayed that I dated another man, let alone moved in with him, and slept with him, but we've never spoken more than a sentence or two on the matter. I refused to explain to Harry how George and I came about, and I am sure that must have hurt him.

Maybe I was wrong with what I told Harry upon that rooftop. It certainly didn't feel like I was doing the right thing. But perhaps, something needed to be said about this relationship, for want of a better word, even if that something was utterly ridiculous, in order for us to talk about whatever it is between us. What was I thinking! Harry and I could easily be more together than we are at this point in time. I've had dreams about that togetherness, more times than I care, or wish, to remember.

_Will you look through the love you find inside my eyes_

_The doubting, the emptiness, the anguish and the lies_

_Passed the page unread_

_No future scene ahead_

_We can never be anything more than this_

Still, some of what I told Harry on our rooftop was true. Can he really see a future for us, away from the Grid? It's all we've ever known of one another, this boss-employee relationship, which barely qualifies as something more when looked at objectively. I know that if Harry was to look into my eyes as I left him on the roof, he would have seen the love I still feel for him. But hopefully he would have been able to understand my fears as well. I am confident of myself in the work environment, but I've always fallen too hard and too fast in love with people. Take John Fortescue, for example. Falling in love too easily has led me to doubt my own feelings for Harry. Is it just another passing fancy for me, or would something between us be something to last for an eternity?

If Harry had looked into my eyes as I left, he would have seen that all I had told him seconds earlier was a lie, and that I knew it, as well as he.

But, I still can't see that Harry and I would work, away from the Grid. We have such messy personal lives, away from Thames House, that we could only end up in a bigger mess than we were before Harry's proposal, were we to act upon these feelings we hold, so dear, for one another.

_Somehow I must be strong without you_

_I need to be wrong to put things right_

_I know that I must be strong without you_

_Cause if I let you hold me up, I'll take you down_

If I let Harry fully into my life, then I'll come to rely on him too much, and I know that, between the weight of our secrets, guilt, regrets, and multitude of other negative attributes, we'll sink, like a ship. Better I cope, alone, with the horrors I've seen, and the regrets of actions past. Harry is such a force of nature in the world, not only as our Section Head, that I, and the team, need him to be at his best. I can't jeopardise the running of Section D, just because I want to be with Harry. He's so crucial to the safety of the country that I would never, _could_ never, forgive myself if I were to distract him from that.

Maybe if Harry and I were away from the Grid, we could find something between us. Something new and different from what we are on the Grid. Not now, when Nightingale is such a problem, but at some time in the future, if Harry and I are able to be more honest with one another, I'll do it. I'll ask him to leave the service, with me and live away from London, somewhere with no neighbours, and somewhere other than Sussex.

_Somehow I must be strong without you_

_I need to be wrong to put things right_

_I know that I must be strong without you_

_Now it's my turn to scream out loud without a sound_

* * *

**This song is sung by the wonderful Samantha Barks, and is written by Tim Prottey-Jones. I had such an issue with this fic, as I couldn't decide whether to leave the lyrics alone and give Harry and Ruth no hope in the main body of the song, or whether to leave half the lyrics out and let them have a sort of happy ending to this one shot.**

**In the end, as much as it's Harry and Ruth and I wanted them to have their 'happy ending' I decided that I should stick with the song, and give them, what I want to be, a hopeful ending.**

**~LouBelle04~**


End file.
